Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Ltd was perhaps the largest of the four public sector pharma units in the country which was declared as sick way back in 1992 by the Board for Industrial & Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) after years of unviable operations. In two years of declaring sick a revival package involving Rs 441 crore was formulated and approved by BIFR in February 1994. The Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises (BRPSE) then recommended the scheme for the approval of the government. The revival package was later placed before the Cabinet which considered the proposal at its meeting on May 17, 2007. As there was no consensus on the issue, it was referred to a GoM for consideration. The GoM under AK Antony was constituted on June 1, 2007 and the first meeting was held on October 11, 2007. But, after the announcement of general elections in March 2009, Antony referred the matter to the next government mainly due to the resignation of two of the members, health minister Anbumani Ramadoss and labour minister Oscar Fernandes as Antony did not want the curtailed GoM to take any critical decision. And even nine months after the new UPA government took over the minister in charge M K Azhagiri never cared to open the file.

The public sector drug companies like IDPL and Hindustan Antibiotics Ltd had played a key role in the early phase of growth of Indian pharmaceutical industry but turned sick over the years on account of the sheer negligence of the ministers who came in charge of the chemicals ministry. The latest victims of this neglect are century old three vaccine producing units of the Central government. The minister in charge ordered their closure in early 2009 allowing private vaccine manufacturers a free run. However, some sense prevailed on the government now and it has decided to reverse the decision and reopen the vaccine units last month. Now, with the threat of MNCs taking over the Indian pharmaceutical industry becoming a reality, the government has to wake up and decide about a new role for the public sector drug units for ensuring supply of quality drugs at fair prices. The policy of price control is in a total mess today and most of the widely used drugs are outside the price control. A large number of medicines available in several semi urban and rural areas of the country are also of doubtful quality. The initiative by the Department of Pharmaceuticals to set up a string generic stores throughout the country is one right step in this direction. Now what the government has to do is to revive all the sick PSU drug units and resume production without any more delay so that the production from them can be a dependable source of supply to the generic stores.